Study Finds Linkage between Diet Drinks and Depression

In a study which shows an association, but no causality – researchers find that people who drink 4 or more cans of diet soda per day are 31% more likely to get depression than people who do not drink sweetened beverages.

More coffee drinking, by the way, seems to slightly
lower a person’s risk of depression.

The Study

NIH researchers polled more than 250 000, 50 to 71 year old
study subjects about their drinking habits during 1995 and 1996.

10 years later, researchers followed up with all subjects to
find out how many had been diagnosed with depression since the year 2000.

The Results

11 311 of the 263 925 subjects had been diagnosed with
depression

Compared to people who did not regularly drink sweetened
drinks:

People who drank 4 or more cans of diet soda per day were
31% more likely to have been diagnosed with depression (People who drank 4 or
more cans of regular soda were 22% more likely)

People who drank 4 or more cans of diet fruit drinks per day
were 51% more likely to have been diagnosed with depression

People who drank 4 or more cups of coffee per day were 10%
less likely than non coffee drinkers to have been diagnosed with depression.

The Commentary

The researchers state, "Our research suggests that cutting
out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened
coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk More research is needed to
confirm these findings, and people with depression should continue to take
depression medications prescribed by their doctors."

They also stress that that although results show an
association between sweetened drinks and an increased incidence rate of
depression – there is no way of knowing from this study whether consumption of
sweetened drinks causes an increased depression risk.

As an alternate theory, some experts have suggested that
depression may lead to increased cravings for sweetened foods and drink s and
this is a more plausible explanation for the association than suggestions that
sweetened drinks might cause depression in some way.

Diet Drinks Linked to Depression:
People who drank 4 or more sodas a day were 31% more likely to get depressed

Or - Some Experts Think That Depressed People Just Crave Sweetness:
Some experts say that people shouldn't make a big deal out of these study results - that it might just be that people who are already depressed crave certain tastes more.

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